INCLUDES INSTRUCTIONS! Orcs, lizardmen, ogres, and a wingless dragon... in a sci-fi setting? Heck yes!

About this creation

I've been wondering what is the best day and time of day to post a creation on MOCpages. When will it get the most views? When will it be able to stay on the front page the longest without getting pressed down by a mob of MOC's from some new guy who is posting his all at once? And since I'm too lazy to do research, I've determined the best time to post an MOC is whenever I feel like it... and hope for the best. So here goes!

EDIT: Well, it looks like that didn't work... the creation has *already* been pushed off the front page. Go figure...

I've been working on this for quite some time.

Don't forget to check out the new-and-improved Nova Refuge website! You can find it at: www.novarefuge.com

The Mahlok are a mysterious, ancient, and extremely powerful people. For centuries now they have fought to spread their empire across the stars. But despite the great power of the Mahlok, they can still be killed, and their numbers, due to their strange and painfully slow manner of breeding, remain few. So the true instrument in the spread of the Empire of Helexith has not been the Mahlok themselves... but their soldiers and slaves, the barbaric and monstrous species known as...

The Slashrim! One of the first planets conquered by the Mahlok was the nearby swampy planet in their own home system, which they called Slasheth. On this planet existed another species with the ability to think and communicate... though not as extensively as the Mahlok. The Mahlok, of course, simply had to take advantage of this. Since the Mahlok conquest of Slasheth, the Slashrim have been little more than slaves to the whim of the Mahlok people.

The Slashrim are a unique species. When they first hatch from their tough, leathery egg, warming itself in the bubbling Slasheth mud pits, they are immediately ready to fight. Newborn Slashrim are vicious and skittery, standing about three to four feet tall. As they grow older, they eventually gain a height of about six feet, begin standing more upright, and start communicating and thinking more easily. At this point they become known as the Grommuk (shown above). The Grommuk are the most numerous and primary soldiers of the Helexith army. Some are field commanders with the intelligence of the average human...

...while others are merely grunts, just smart enough to use mechanical devices and follow orders. And unless they are given orders, they will usually find some excuse to tear one another apart. Slashrim come in a wide variety of dull colors, including green, red, brown, black, beige, grey, and orange. Their eyes also range between these same colors. They are able to use most any type of weapon, but they usually end up using whatever they can find. This means they often salvage armor and weapons from their foes on the battlefield. The Mahlok see nothing wrong with this.

Sometimes Humans make the mistake of thinking of the Slashrim as "lizards," which gives the impression that they would be cold-blooded, scaly, and slow. But the Slashrim are indeed quite the opposite. They are warm-blooded, have leathery skin, and are extremely fast. Because of this, some of them become what humans call "berserkers" (shown above). These warriors fly into an even more uncontrollable bloodthirsty rage than most Slashrim do when in battle. They usually rush in headlong with melee weapons, ignoring wounds and pain as they destroy their enemies. Sometimes they can be fatally wounded but continue fighting anyway, only giving in to death after their enemy has fallen as well.

When the Slashrim reach adulthood, they grow longer snouts, necks, tails, horns, and... well, longer everything. This stage is known as the Zrillak. The Zrillak are the most intelligent Slashrim, the leaders of the army. They are the adults, the ones with the ability to mate and produce offspring. Thus, they are respected above all other Slashrim. The greatest and most loyal Zrillak are even considered on the same rank level as some Mahlok in the Helexith Coalition.

As Slashrim grow older, they do grow more senile and stupid. But they most certainly do not grow weaker. Indeed, the Slashrim never stop growing larger and stronger throughout their entire life. Eventually they reach Stage 5... the Wogrok. These great beasts have the minds of utter simpletons, and their bodies are so massive that they usually have to shuffle about on all fours like gorillas when moving. But the Wogrok are second in strength and power only to the Stage 6 Slashrim, the Sovalok.

Humans sometimes call the Wogrok "ogres." Due to their massive size, the Wogrok are usually employed as siege weapons by the Mahlok. They have enough strength to smash down buildings and even enemy walkers, using their ferocious claws to tear them apart. The Wogrok are also sometimes used as personal mounts by the Zrillak, who saw the horns off their back and affix a saddle there.

Due to their stupidity, orders given to the Wogrok often have to be reinforced with pain. It may seem evil to Humans to treat an elder of the same species in such a way, but the Slashrim do not see it as such. They worship combat, and keeping an elder of their kind fighting in the field is a great respect in their eyes. After all, is it not better to die in the heat of battle than to fade away into old age and simply die?

But how did the Mahlok manage to enslave such a powerful and numerous people? The answer is with superior intelligence, superior technology... and the persuasive power of religion. The Mahlok are not themselves a truly religious species, but they know the uses of religion. So when they learned of the Slashrim worship of the sun god Helexith, they began twisting it to serve their own uses. They turned themselves into holy men, almost gods, and the Slashrim bowed down and worshipped them. To fight for the Mahlok, the Slashrim believe, is to fight for the god of light, warmth, goodness, hope, and life... Helexith.

And the Slashrim continue to believe this, even as the Mahlok prove more and more that they are malevolent. Upon observing the strangely unstable biology of the Slashrim, the Mahlok began breeding them... mixing deformities and mutants to produce "better" and more "advanced" Slashrim... larger, stronger, faster, smarter... with multiple extra eyes, heads, arms, or even legs. These Mutates usually turn out as grotesque and mentally unstable... but often times their mutations do have their uses.

One of the most respected Slashrim war leaders is Vasha Valgerogk, a black Zrillak with red eyes. He is a Mutate, with two small arms below his primary large ones. He is one of the Mahlok's few smashing success mutations. Not only is he strong and loyal and intelligent, but he also has relatively accurate control over his extra arms, which is useful for carrying two extra weapons. Another mostly successful Mutate is Zur-Snag, a two-headed, tan-skinned Slashrim. Though his two heads are independent and often bicker with one another, only one of them, the more intelligent left head (Zur), has control over the legs. The other, stupider one (Snag) only has control over his single arm. This gives Zur-Snag the ability to move about with ease and wield two weapons at once with stunning and deadly accuracy.

But despite the fact that some Humans continue to think so, not all Slashrim are loyal to the Mahlok and their twisted religion. The greatest rebellious Slashrim is the great old green Zrillak known as Vasha Greeshakk, Leader of the Free Slashrim. Greeshakk believes himself to be living proof of the natural evolution of the Slashrim into wiser and more peaceful people. Even as the Mahlok hunt for him and his band of rebels, Greeshakk attracts more followers, including the skilled red-skinned warrior known as Lashnar, who now serves as Greeshakk's right-hand man and field commander.

Greeshakk believes in both the evolution of the Slashrim and in the purity of their ancient ways. Even as he moves to change their society to a more peaceful one, he also is trying to restore their ancient religion to its purest form, untainted by the Mahlok, so that he may find the fundamental truths that he is sure lie at the heart of the worship of Helexith. Currently, Vasha Greeshakk is hiding in the jungles of northern Womloch on Terra Nova. He has even purchased help at times from Grimm's Mercenary Army there. And Humans would do well to help him, for he may be their only hope of living peacefully with the Slashrim.

And now we reach the final stage of the Slashrim life... the Sovalok, known to most Humans as the Pseudodragon. When Slashrim reach this stage, their body and head have become so heavy that the are forced to travel on all fours at all times. But with this great size comes immense strength and respect.

Well, perhaps not so much respect as we Humans would see it. The Slashrim continue to use even their oldest of kin as vehicles of war, strapping Mahlok-built war platforms like howdahs onto their backs. Since few Slashrim ever reach this great age, those that do are heavily armored for protection, so that the Mahlok can make the most use of them in war.

We Humans may see this as ill treatment of an elder, but the Mahlok see it as quite the opposite. They all look forward to the day that they will carry the great power and responsibility of the Sovalok. To become a might Pseudodragon is a Slashrim soldier's greatest dream. The Sovalok's deafening roar awakens the fighting spirit in all Slashrim, and evokes fear in the hearts of their enemies.
And yes, the head design for this creation was taken largely from the LEGO Creator set with the green dragon.

In case you didn't notice, I heavily decaled my Slashrim Sovalok. Don't like it? Well, I'd say "bite me," but there's a Sovalok listening, and they say they can still understand words sometimes. By the way, yes, the weird alien writing on the howdah does say something. All of the writing on the Sovalok's decals is written in the Mahlok language I've been working on. The word on either side of the main howdah platforms is "Kachnoak," the name of the individual that is being ridden. You may think there are too few letters on the decal to spell "Kachnoak," but that's because the Mahlok language has a single later for the "ch" sound. They also have two different letters for the long and short a.

The writing on this storage box says "gej," which is Slashrim slang for "food," sort of like the Human word "grub." The contents contained therein are mostly cans of the hearty Slashrim soup called Poj-Poj by Humans. By the way, see the Slashrim guy's sword? That's the great thing about Knights Kingdom swords: they're customizable. They're fat and stupid looking, so there's plenty of stuff to cut and you don't really mind losing the original thing. They're also made of this bendy plastic that's very easy to cut with a pocket knife.

A little more trivia about the language: all vowels are marked with a dot somewhere on the letter, and all "capital letters" are marked with two dots, such as the first letter in Kachnoak's name. If you're wondering about all of the glowing red and orange markings and lights on the black armor plating, well, that's just how Mahlok vehicles look. You'll see more of it later when I beef up their army some more.

A Mahlok Priest of Helexith surveys the underside of their living walker, the Sovalok. The Mahlok take surprisingly good care of the Sovalok, keeping them in proper health and tending to their wounds and injuries. But they really only see it as mechanical maintenance on a machine of war. After all, the Sovalok has the power to even fight walkers and win.

In the howdah are the control panels for the great beast. Those controls used for steering send electrical signals into the Sovalok's head to instruct him on which way to go, and how fast. There are also controls for the various parts of the machines that the Sovalok wears... such as the missile racks mounted on the small "wings" jutting from the sides.

Some Sovalok are equipped with different kinds of howdahs, including large, rotating turrets. Most of the howdahs add more protection to the Sovalok than is visible to the naked eye, because they often are equipped to project energy shielding over most of the creature's body. With all this protection and firepower, a Sovalok is a match for any mechanical Human walker.

So far, Human kind has yet to face the Slashrim horde at its full potential. During the Xenocide War on Terra Nova, we faced only the Slashrim who were already present on the planet. Perhaps the majority of the Helexith army was off fighting other battles on other worlds. Perhaps the Mahlok feared that sending the majority of their army to the by then heavily Human-populated planet Terra Nova would be suicide. And perhaps they are now biding their time, waiting for the right moment to get their revenge and retake what was once largely theirs. Mahlok have long memories... and even longer lives.

And here we see the Slashrim horde invading some world full of extremely primitive and stupid, furry little primate creatures. You'll have to pardon my ridiculously cheap and cartoony blood effects... I just hate these despicable little furballs that much.

Very seldom have the Mahlok and Slashrim ever lost a war when fighting together. The Achmer were able to defend their territory from Helexith invasion millennia ago... and the Sarran succeeded in doing the same. But both of them only achieved "victory" after a sizeable loss of territory... and loss of life, of course.

Sovalok jaws are strong and tough enough to rend metal from metal... but they always prefer the tasty crunch of living flesh. Before you ask, yes, the Slashrim are occasionally cannibals. But the Mahlok are constantly at work to discourage the practice, so most Slashrim now consider it an affront to Helexith to eat one's own kind... or one's allies, naturally.

Since my monitor just keeps getting bigger, you'll find that this desktop wallpaper image is at a resolution of 1680x1050... Sorry for you non-widescreeners out there. You'll just have to live with either a stretched image or the letterbox copy.

Okay, some people want to know how I built my Slashrim Zrillak lizard-men... so I have made some photographic instructions. First of all, thanks to Mandalore (Danny C.) for the basic design behind the Slashrim legs and central torso. I got the ideas from his Covenant Elite. However, some people are now telling me that the leg design was not originally Mandalore's. Well, if someone else came up with it first, my hat's off to him. Thanks, buddy! That said, let's move on with the instructions...

The trickiest part to the legs is how to attach them to the torso and still get that nice splayed-out positioning that makes them look so much more natural and organic. For this we, use minifig antenna or lever pieces removed from their bases, as seen above.

Then link them together like so. Some people have told me that the result is highly unstable and floppy for them. Well, so far most of mine have worked out fine, so maybe you should try using different parts. It could be that your pieces are just looser or more worn. Still, not all of mine stand up that well either. In fact, Lashnar here is one of the worst. I usually support him with his halberd, as you can see in my photos.

The head is attached like so. The part of the head covered by the decal is simply a stack of two 1x2 plates under one side of the hinge. This method for attaching the head gives the minifig its hunch-backed shape, which I thought Mandalore's Elite was lacking. The face decals, of course, can be purchased in my website's decal shop.

Now attach some accessories onto the torso. You can go crazy here with your own ideas and mix up the construction some, like I did with many of mine. For example, Vasha Greeshakk's head is actually attached to the front of the torso, not the back, and the plates for the head are stacked on top of the hinge instead of on the bottom.

Then another pair of hooks are attached to the droid bodies, with small Technic pins in the end of each hook. I went through several arm designs before I got this... I wanted to make sure I had all the joints, including rotating wrists.

And as you can see, they can stand up quite well and are very pose-able (blast it, I'm still not sure how you spell that word... or if it's even a word!). By the way, notice that I cut the very back lower corners off of the face decal, since they kept hitting the armor disks on his body. You might want to keep that in mind.

In reply to ........: The Work in Progress folder is used for posting images of things that are currently unfinished when talking about them on my forums. Only my finalized work gets posted on the website. But if you want to take a look at the WIP folder, just go to my brickshelf gallery and click on it: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/SaberScorpion

In reply to Lucas Pozdol: Ah, nothing like a review that consists of something completely random, eh? So just out of curiosity, is that man or something he said related to this creation in any obscure way?

In reply to Connor Pruett: Really? Hmm, interesting. I wouldn't really know since I don't get into 40K, but the similarity doesn't surprise me considering the subject matter.

its awesome i still cant build one of the lizard dudes but i wish i could they are way cooler that any covenant elites ive ever seen and the amount of ppl you have for the hoard is awesome, whats ur decals site?

Your fantastic models continue to amaze me. This impressed me so much that I made my own aliens. I had never even considered brick-built aliens before, but now I can see that they are the best kind! The pseudodragon is massive and intimidating, and I like how it is their tank. If this didn't use decals, it would probably win my contest (advertising).

Wow, this is great! I especially like the 2nd and 6th stages. I do think that the concept art looks better than the actual thing, though. However, I absolutely LOVE the 2nd stage (as I said with your elite). I was thinking of taking some of those ideas and turning it into a LOTR troll. Anyways, great job, and keep up the good work.

I am a massive fan of your work and you have really outdone yourself this time!
P.S do you ship deacals to the uk?, if not how can i get the decals of your site?
P.P.S Please check out my delta squad and my Master Trenox Deji on my MOC site.

Now bring us Sarren.
Scorp, I'm in SSLF and I WAS going to tell you I was reading ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY AND FOUND your website in Lego Maniac.It was talking about a guy who was challagento make three games dioramas. You should get that magenzine, talks about WII and PS3 countrolls. Okay i getting off track. You should make the rebel Slashrim fight the mutaint Slashrim.

Great, the creations are very good, the only thing i wanted to say is that the lifecycle is a little strange i think, from kinda orc to lizard to ogre to dragon, i think that the ogre is a little misplaced. still they are all perfect including the ogre. Those lizardmen aren't'legos anymore they are action figures :p

these are quite amazing. i may try to make one of those dinosaur looking guys. if you don't mind posting up those decals for the face, it would be much apreciated. if i ever use on in one as a part of my creations, i'll be sure to give you credit for the design.

These are all excellent. Nice to see some Natives in the Nova RefugeŠ universe. I'm anticipating some Sarran soon, judging by the picture under official LEGOŽ models at the "Official LEGOŽ models" section of your Nova RefugeŠ website.

Scorp, you've done it again my friend. Although I must admit I was hoping for a green dragon, but I can see why you didn't. Very good. I hope to see more sometime soon (I may be making my own dragon, just so ya know, you've inspired me)